It's a Family Affair - Review: 07.06.2013

Well, family is what EastEnders used to be all about. Peggy screeching "fairmly" ... Pauline banging on about family ... And what families there were, starting with the Beale-Fowlers and the Watts. The Butchers and the Mitchells came in with the second wave. 

Those families are the ones whose scions should be the legacy and the core of the Square now - Ian Beale, Sharon Watts (she'll never be a Rickman), Janine Butcher and Phil Mitchell. Sharon left the show at the beginning of 2006, and Bryan Kirkwood managed to decimate the Beales, the Butchers and the Mitchells.

I'm sorry to offend any "long-term" viewers who think EastEnders Golden Age began and ended with John Yorke - trust me, it didn't - but the godawful Slaters and the Brannings, who began with Harwood and grew like a cancer under Bryan Kirkwood, not to mention the Moons, don't hold a candle to the Old Guard.

The Slaters promulgated the myth that a loud, brassy woman who never takes responsibility for her actions and promotes herself as the eternal victim is a strong woman. They also began the sibling-as-friend cult, which effectively put the mockers on any sort of real female friendship.

The Moons' cheeky, chirpy, chappies were devolved into witless doormats under the tutelage of Bryan Kirkwood, who believed in the essential weakness of the heterosexual male of Walford.

And the Brannings grew to be reviled and hated, with their dodgy deals, their incestuous affairs, their skirt-chasing, alcoholic women, thuggy men and spoiled, entitled children.

Kirkwood left the Square in tatters - filled with broken remnants of families. The Beales, Mitchells and Butchers were decimated whilst the Brannings grew, even adding multi-cultural rainbow satellites, with the potential of even growing bigger. When Sharon, Walford's original Princess returned, she was plopped down in the middle of BranningVille, bedding Jack and befriending the nefarious Tanya. Even the Mitchells, via Ronnie and Roxy, are linked with the Brannings. Janine looks after Ricky's ex-wife and his kids, all of whom have Branning blood.

One of Newman's aims is to rebuild and strengthen the iconic families on the Square. This means building up the Beales, something that we've been seeing recently and which came to a head tonight; something that will be seen in the near future with the return of Ronnie Mitchell and the eventual inclusion of Sharon in the family which was created especially for her; and if David Wicks returns, he can re-claim his Beale heritage, as Ian's brother and the Beale kids' uncle, bring Bianca more firmly into the Beale fold, and claim a link as the stepbrother of Janine Butcher and grandfather of two Butcher children.

The core of the show has to be built around these essential families and characters. Rebuilt. Again.

As for the Brannings, and their satellites, the drunken Crosses and the boring Klingon Hartmans ...

Bad blood ...

The Klingon Factor.

Enunciation, my dears ...

Dex-TAAAAAAAAA. Dex-TAAAAAAAA. Yew ahhh ac-TINGGGG like an eee-deee-YOTTT.

The Magic Negro, again, with yet another day off from teaching/administrating the local school, spends twenty years not bothering to teach her silly son how to speak properly, and tonight, she's a MasterClass in ueber-diction.

She is boring, utterly pointless, and an insult to anyone in the teaching profession. She, along with Tyler Moon, is a walking example of what happens when someone is cast on a whim and a character is created on an even bigger whim. With a backstory that's been retconned at least three times since she was introduced, no character arc, no direction and nothing for which to aim, simply to justify her existence, she's being foist upon us in yet another story of yet another long-lost love affair, producing another obnoxious kid with Daddy Issues.

The problem this creates is that, with Sam gone for 20 years, that means a plethora of half-siblings can be brought into the foray with whom the Klingons can interact. Yet more relatives, popping up with Square connections.

I don't give a rat's arse about this woman, her permanently smiling quota-inducing husband and her pisspoor, unintelligible son doing a bad impersonation of a British ethnic youth imitating what he thinks an African American youth sounds like.

Ava looks like a Klingon. Cock looks like a Klingon crossed with a Vulcan. And both lack the charm of Worff and Spock.

The Children's Hour

Spoiled, immature, entitled behaviour must come down through the drink-sodden Cora the Bora genes. Because Dex-TAAAAAAA (also known as the Little Cock) certainly displayed these to perfection last night, when he wantonly destroyed a car, not only he, but Jay, had worked hard to rebuild.

Tonight Diddums takes it all out on Jay. Jay wied to Diddums and didn't tell Diddums that Daddy Dearest bought the car. But because of Cock's childish behaviour - and he's even angrier now because his Klingon mummy and Quota dad were seen being civil to each other and walking together, that's just enough to set him mad with anger. Not only Jay, but Mummy wied to Diddums.

Well, Lola likes a man in the palm of her hand, as the song says; and I guess the Magic Negro does also. Good continuity reference tonight when Cock was doing his party piece kick-off about his Daddy issue, for Jay to reference Jase. Thank you. At least, it's nice to know that the past does matter, even if it's only the recent past, which numpties who've watched since 2006 can remember.

This vignette tonight - trite, boring and appallingly acted - was a teaching moment which should have been shown on some CBBC show about anger management and acting your age.

Seriously, I cannot remember in all the 28 years I've watched this show, there being so many untried and untalented brickshit young actors like Tony Discipline, David Witts and the absolutely gobsmackingly appalling Khali Best, who makes a living out of gaping his mouth wide open, bugging his eyes out and looking angry with Vulcan ears. I tought David Witts had a problem with mouth-breathing. Khali Best has it down to an art.

The Menopausal Madam.

(A real sitcom about the menopause).

You know, however much she tries to hide it, Carol is one rude woman. I wonder what someone like Masood sees in her, except that maybe her behaviour may remind him of She-Whom-We-Must-Not-Mention (the wife across the water who left on Valentine's Day). Masood doesn't even mention his youngest child anymore.

Anyway, the menopause only makes Carol ruder. Masood buys her a lovely pashmina, yet she throws it back in his face, with a quasi-racist remark about the item only looking good on someone who was twenty-five ... and Asian.

Masood is quite a cultured and dignified man, and what he sees in a temperamental guttersnipe like Carol, who's the upper end of her chav family, goodness only knows. Maybe he thinks he can be a Henry Higgins-type saviour to her.

Fancy Carol as a menopausal Eliza Doolittle?

And Bianca really shouldn't wear red with her hair. 

Speaking of red ...

Beale Back in Business.

Ian's opening and his return to the schmoozing and smarming of the local business community would have been interesting, were I not distracted by Lucy Beale's china doll make-up, especially that Rich Girl Red trout pout. The lips stole everything, and stood out against alabastar pale skin. 

Really, what was that make-up all about?

Ian's in weasel mode again, thanking everyone except the one person whose talents were exploited tonight to make the occasion occur - Jean, the chef. How Jean's suddenly become the galloping gourmet cook of Walford, when her signature culinary masterpiece was always the dubious Sausage Surprise, is quite extraordinary.

First, for years, we were led to believe that Jean wasn't a very good cook at all. Then we were led to believe that she was all right in baking cakes and pastries. Now, suddenly, she's a MasterChef - well, a sous chef in Ian Beale's budding empire. Again.

We shouldn't be surprised that Ian forgot Jean. Forgetting the little people who kept the cogs in the wheels of his empire turning was always Ian's signature party piece. He's turning into Walford's Basil Fawlty again ...

Easy to imagine Ian doing this to Jean ...

He certainly did that enough to Billy, so I guess that not only does Jean become Shirley's skinny Heather, she's now Ian's NuBilly.

Another odd thing about his omission of thanking Jean in his litany of thanks is that, the person whom he thanked most profusely, was Denise, and Denise lapped it up like a cat does cream.

Just exactly what did Denise do, apart from flustering about helping him with last-minute preparations and giving him surreptitious kisses and cuddles, to merit special mention? Denise is the latest in a line-up of women to suffer Mrs Bealitis. Normally, her natural compassion would make her realise that Ian had omitted Jean, and she would have stepped forth and thanked Jean publically, herself; but she's stated openly recently, in a total character re-write, that she likes the financially flush, masterful Ian Beale.

Well, wait until she finds he's been embezzling from his daughter.

As for that escapade, pot, meet kettle.

Lucy can trust Ian just about as much as Ian can trust Lucy. Lucy took advantage of Ian's illness to fleece him out of his businesses and reduce him to begging for work on the stall, which she was prepared to sell without compunction. Ian's embezzled from Lucy in order to tart his restaurant up in the style to which he was formerly accustomed.

Did he think she wouldn't notice eventually - sooner, rather than later? He's lucky she didn't launch into full bitch mode and demand a share, if not the outright ownership, of the restaurant. And all that kerfuffle when Ian got the financial backing from Janine about Lucy being worried about Ian. She was only worried that he'd come back strong and wrench the businesses she fleeced back into rightful ownership.

She's one of a gaggle of YOOF characters who need paring with an axe.

Odd to note that Sharon and Phil didn't show up for the occasion of the opening, or the Moons from the pub across the way. Or Jack Branning.

Highlight of these scenes, Peter Beale's duff-duff entrance apart, was Ian's interaction with Janine, who'd not only taken the liberty as the sole financial backer of the enterprise, of re-naming the restaurant, but also of ordering the livery and linens as well, with the new logo of Scarlett's.

It's good to see Janine hold one over Ian financially, considering the way he leeched off her when she was on her uppers, offering her fifty quid a poke when she was working as a prostitute and then rubbing her nose in it - literally making her scrub the floors of his chippy and reveling in her misfortune. Now the worm has turned, and Ian's under even more pressure now to repay her what she's loaned him to start the business. Danny Pennant was right - Ian's not really the boss; and Denise and Lucy can act as though she's a bad smell all they want, at the end of the day, it's she who owns the thing.

What did I tell you about Janine and class? Line of the night.

Oh, and, Ian, the new waitress uniforms are on order too. This is a restaurant, not a brothel.

Once again, good continuity in channelling Pete, Albert and Lou Beale. Pete and Lou were original characters - something the millennial viewers probably don't give a fig about because they existed before these entitled few were born.

Downside of this vignette: Bobby Beale. What was that all about, dressing him as the Artful Dodger? I agree with Max Brannning. I half expected him to burst into a chorus of "Consider Yourself." Godawful stageschool kid with far too many lines and totally obnoxious. EastEnders always does things in threes, and now we have three totally repugnant kid characters who all make Simon Barlow look like one of the Waltons - Tiffany, Denny and now NuBobby.

The REAL Artful Dodger ...

The Lost Boys.

Or rather, the Pretty Boys of Walford.

On the one hand, we have the long-awaited and mysterious Danny Pennant, who - it seems - has more of a link to Walford than Syed's tongue. He's a friend/acquaintance of Mr Lister, who acquired a first name tonight - Robert. Ian thinks Danny's an investor, but he's someone who invests other mugs' people's money, as Syed found, to his chagrin.

We also see that Masood remembers him disdainfully, and we also see a soupcon of a revelation that Danny isn't the Great White Gay Hope. (Even as I type,  vaslav37 and Wee Willie Wanker Slater-Mitchell are decompensating into their soup). They were absolutely certain that Pennant was going to take over the mantle of The Only Gay in the Village and bring anyone from Joey Branning to Michael Moon to Dex-TAAAAAAA to Liam Butcher (which would have made him a paedophile) out of whatever closet in which they dwelled.

Newsflash: There's no remit for any programme to have a quota of any sort of character - be they ethnic, a particular gender or LGBT. Characters shouldn't be created/cast on the basis of racial ethnicity, gender or gender orientation. They should be written as people, and race and sexuality shouldn't even come into it.

However, regarding Danny, we were never told specifically that he was gay. We were left to assume that because he slept with Syed.

It could very well be that Danny is bisexual. It could also very well be that he's a moral reprobate, who's guided by his desire to make money, and he'll do whatever it takes to get people with money to invest in his venture. If that means sleeping with a man, he will; if that means sleeping with a woman, he will. This makes for a complex and very nuanced character. And as the character, in his own words, makes a beeline for Janine, and as they clicked with sexual chemistry tonight, I would say that the gay storyline is all but forgotten.

Watch this space. Or, rather, watch vaslav37's and Slater-Mitchell's respective meltdowns.

And at the very end, we had the long-awaited Crown Prince - the Return of the Native: NuPeter Beale. Hunkier and with testicles fully descended. He's lost the piping boy soprano tremor to his voice and he no longer looks like a tall poppy.

His brief duff-duff scene was too brief to make a judgement, but on first impression, he looks like a younger, poor man's version of Leonardo Di Caprio. I need to see his Monday scenes, and I presume there will be some; but the lad is LAMDA-trained as opposed to catalogue modeling and fame schooled, so let's see what's on offer from an actor who's the product, like Nigel Harman, of a British public school, and whose real name is Ben Jones.

I Was Drunk Last Night, Dear Mother ...

Oh dear ... it's 

THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTENDERS.

Yep, here beginneth Tanya's pithy leaving line, which isn't about Tanya at all and is all about Lauren. 

Here's an interesting thought: Tanya's sister has drink issues - so much so, she's sought help and removed herself from her family because they encourage the pejorative development of these issues. Tanya's mother certainly has drink issues. And Tanya, herself, does. In fact, Tanya and Cora are functioning alcoholics.

EastEnders is to be lauded for tackling the problem of teenaged alcohol abuse, but - Lordy - Jacqueline Jossa has a snowball's idea of what hell's like in playing a drunk. She's not even a sympathetic drunk. Tanya, with her background of alcoholism, would be a more sympathetic character to study because we've known since 2007 that Tanya turns to the bottle on any excuse, and Jo Joyner would have played a real blinder.

Instead, we are left with this untalented, lazy and extremely cold and unlikeable actress who gives no empathy to Lauren at all. Lauren always was a cold-minded, selfish and entitled little bitch, but since 2010, she's been even moreso. And self-centred. The actress relies on gurning, camera-hogging and using weird voices and enunciation to stand out in a scene when film technique often is able to pick up subtlety and nuance the way a stage performance isn't. Jossa still thinks that all the world's a stage and she's in the centre of it. They've patterned Lauren more on the real her than on what the character of Lauren should be.

Anyway, after loftily and self-righteously announcing to her proud parents that the only person who can help Lauren is herself, she proceeds to flash her entitlements about Ian's establishment.

This is true. The only person who can help a person with an addictive personality is themselves. They've got to want help, and she's so far gone, judging by the number of bottles under her bed, that she is totally drink-dependent now. One thing ... Lauren shares a room with Abi. How did she manage to fanoogle all that booze down her neck without Abi the Dough-Faced Tattletale noticing? Oh, that'a right ... Abi's in lurrrrve and was probably too busy playing with her patootie under the covers and fantasizing about Jay to notice Lauren was quiently going on a bender.

Drinking the guests' leavings and announcing that as a perk of the job, mouthing off at a VIP customer (contrived) and ordering Ian about as if he were the servant and she was someone begging for a second chance two days ago went down a bomb.

Really, I wish someone would call time on this character, but sadly, I have a feeling she and NuPeter are going to be Newman's beautiful go-to couple.

As for Joey, what was the purpose of him leaning loutishly over the bar and mumbling his lines? Max is wrong to blame Joey for Lauren's problem. Lauren's problem is Lauren, and the fact that she's grown up watching her mother, her aunt and her nan reach for the bottle on the flimsiest of excuses.

Janine Moons a Moon.

I love it when Janine pulls a blinder, and I love watching Charlie Brooks. This was a double-whammy, both to silly Alice for abusing Janine's trust and to manipulative Michael, for everything that he's done to her. Scarlett's will be a permanent reminder to Michael of the daughter Janine has taken away. She hasn't gone, really (Charlie Brooks had to make a trip with the charity she sponsors to Jordan for a week); she just wants to give Michael a taste of his own manipulation.

And the real psychopath emerges, vowing to destroy Alice if Janine and Scarlett don't return; and he would also, in the worst way and without batting an eyelid.

Best episode of the week, for obvious reasons - and they were not the Magic Negro, Lauren or Dex-TAAAAAAA.